


Seventeen

by blue_pointer



Series: 1935 [1]
Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Bisexual, Bucky's part time job, Bucky's sister - Freeform, Busted, Coney Island, Cyclone, F/M, M/M, Oral, Other, Possessive Steve, Pre-Captain America: The First Avenger, Steve the third wheel, Stucky - Freeform, angry!Steve, attempted threesome, couch cushions on the floor, intercrural, promiscuous!Bucky, sleepover, swearing because Brooklyn, teenagers being smutty
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-31
Updated: 2016-06-01
Packaged: 2018-07-11 08:41:33
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Underage
Chapters: 2
Words: 7,455
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7041193
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/blue_pointer/pseuds/blue_pointer
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Bucky has a great idea to get Steve some experience with dames.<br/>Too bad he didn't ask Steve first.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. The Photo Booth

Steve couldn’t say which was worse: when Bucky forced his date to bring along another dame so that it was a real double date, or when he didn’t.    
Because Bucky didn’t seem to think that leaving Steve out of his dates was an option. 

Well, actually, Steve had complained about it in the past, and Bucky had said if he didn’t bring Steve along on his dates, they’d never see each other, which was a dickish thing to say, but probably also true. At least since sophomore year, Bucky had always either been at school, at work, on a date, or sleeping. Often sleeping took place during one of the first three. 

It hadn’t been easy since George Barnes had walked out on his wife and four kids. Bucky was the head of the family now--or so he told Steve. Either way, they counted on his income from the drugstore to pay bills, and Bucky wasn’t the type to let his mom down.

He also wasn’t the type to say no to a girl, and there were--it seemed to Steve--scores of them lined up at the soda counter every day, just waiting for Bucky to say yes. Some didn’t even wait for him to ask them out.

This girl, Lorraine, had been one of those. Actually, according to Bucky, she hadn’t even asked him out, she’d just passed him a list of things she’d like to do to him sometime and told him to let her know whenever he was ready. Then she’d stayed past closing time at the shop on one of the days old man Rubinstein hadn’t been there, and started down the list herself. According to Bucky, who’d never actually said yes or no to her or the list. 

But he wasn’t the type to say no to a girl. 

Steve was actually a little curious--because Lorraine was Lorraine--why Bucky had invited her out with them. According to Bucky, Lorraine wasn’t the type of girl you took to the movies (or the amusement park in this case), she was the type you took somewhere private. Coney Island was anything but private. He watched Bucky, trying to figure it out. 

Steve also watched Lorraine. If he didn’t know the type of girl she was, Steve probably wouldn’t have believed it. She seemed nice enough. There she was, holding onto Bucky’s arm and making goo-goo eyes at him like almost all the dames did. Her skirt was a normal length and her heels weren’t too high. Her hair looked nice and her make-up wasn’t like Steve imagined a fast girl would wear her make-up. He had some wild idea in his mind he couldn’t really put into words, but fast girls surely looked a certain way, and she just didn’t.

She even kept turning around to try to include Steve in the conversation, which dames NEVER did on a single-date with Bucky where Steve tagged along. Steve had a sinking feeling she was secretly making fun of him, but he tried to respond to her comments and questions as polite as he could.

Bucky wasn’t saying much, he just had this weird smirk on his face all night. Like the asshole he was. But he was Steve’s asshole, and that’s how Steve knew something was up. Buck was usually great at talking to girls. He usually put in at least a minimal effort and was rewarded double or more. But tonight it was like he didn’t even care. 

“Oh, Bucky!” Lorraine’s eyes lit up. “Can we go on the Cyclone? Barbara told me about it from the last time she came down to the island and I’ve been itching to go…”

Bucky didn’t even make eye contact with Lorraine when he replied, still wearing that shit-eating grin, “Sorry, Lorraine, Stevie can’t go on the Cyclone. He tosses his cookies.”   
  
“Just that one time!” Steve said defensively. 

“Trust me, pal,” Bucky turned around to smile at him--more of a real smile than he’d shown all night--”Once was enough.”

“Jerk,” Steve grumbled while Lorraine laughed. 

“Punk,” Bucky shot back. 

“But really, though,” Lorraine kept trying, “Maybe just you and me could go then. Stevie wouldn’t mind, would you Stevie?”

Steve shrugged. “No, it’s fine. I’ll just try out the high striker or somethin’ while I wait.” Lorraine seemed to think he’d been joking, because she laughed more at that.

“Lorraine.” Bucky wasn’t smiling anymore. “Steve’s my best pal. I didn’t bring him here to watch us ride a bunch of rides.”

“Really, Buck. It’s okay--” Steve started to say. 

“Please?” Lorraine wheedled at him, and the way she pouted and looked up at Bucky through her eyelashes made Steve feel weird. Something about the way she was standing, her hips tilted one way, her...upper half tilted another. If Steve could see down her blouse, he was sure Bucky could. “I promise I’ll make it up to him.”

Bucky seemed to consider. He cast a sly glance at Steve and then gave Lorraine a hard look. “Like we talked about?” 

“Yeah, sure. Uh-huh,” Lorraine agreed quickly. “Cross my heart and hope to die.”

“All right,” Bucky conceded, smirking again. “But just one ride.”

“Yippee, let’s go!” She started to tow him away enthusiastically.

“Meet us at the photo booth on the other side,” Bucky called out to Steve over his shoulder. “Don’t even think about wandering off on your own again, or I’ll kick your ass.”

Steve flipped him the bird but made his way slowly toward the rendezvous. The line would take them at least 20 minutes, and no way was Steve just going to stand there and wait, best friend or no.

He tried his luck at one of the high strikers, but Steve’s measly effort just made the carny running the game laugh. “Well that was a waste of a nickel,” Steve muttered under his breath. All those damn games were rigged anyway.

He put his next nickel to good use, buying a Coney Island dog with everything. Steve usually liked to flick the onions at Bucky one by one, but his best friend was currently on that damned roller coaster and Steve sadly couldn’t flick onions that high.  

He took his time, eating and walking and people-watching. By the time Steve finally got to the end of the ride, Bucky and Lorraine were already in the photo booth steaming the place up. Steve coughed uncomfortably to let them know he was outside. He might have just kept walking and let them do their thing, but Steve had learned from experience that Bucky had no shame. He also didn’t take kindly to Steve wandering off “just because he was kissing some girl.”

“You gotta get used to it, Stevie,” Bucky would tell him. “Someday it’s gonna be you they’re kissing.” Steve had pointed out that it wasn’t, though, but Bucky wasn’t having any of that.

Bucky also got pissed if Steve wandered off “because of some dame” when Bucky had invited him along. It had happened more than once, and they’d come to blows over it before, Steve insisting that Bucky should be allowed to focus on his date without Steve third-wheeling it, and Bucky insisting just as vehemently that no dame was ever going to be more important to him than his best pal. Times like this, it was hard to see that, but well. Dames were pretty distracting, Steve figured. Especially Lorraine.

“Steve.” Lorraine’s face emerged from behind the curtain all of a sudden, startling him out of his thoughts.

“Oh. Uh...Hi, Lorraine.” It was hard not to notice a bunch of the buttons on her blouse were undone. Her eyes were bright, and her lipstick was smudged. Steve’s heart started to beat a little faster.

“Bucky says ‘come here,’” she conveyed, glancing back into the booth with a giggle.

Steve shrugged. “What? I am here.”

“Come closer,” Lorraine smiled at him, and the way her voice went kind of husky, soft but not really a whisper, made Steve’s pants twitch.

“I don’t--” Steve glanced around, uncomfortable. But no one was looking. The boardwalk was too busy, and this photo booth was tucked away just under the coaster, in a corner no one would have thought to look unless they came here every week like him and Buck did. 

“Come on, silly!” she laughed, and Steve hesitated. The last thing a guy wanted was to be laughed at by a dame. But she didn’t seem to mean any harm, even reaching out an arm and tugging him closer to the curtain by the lapel of his jacket. “He’s shy,” she turned to tell Bucky inside. 

The curtain suddenly swept aside. “Come on, Steve.” 

Steve just stared. He wasn’t used to looking at Bucky in the middle of...this. His friend’s hair was mussed in a revealing way, and his lips were bruised and parted slightly in a wicked smile. 

“Ohhhhh no!” Steve started to back away.  _ Of all the hair-brained ideas! _

“Stop!” And he only did because of the hurt in his friend’s voice. Steve knew he shouldn’t look back, but he did. Bucky’s back rested against the wall of the photo booth, but his hips were thrust forward against Lorraine. His shirt collar was open, and there was already a red hickey blooming under his jawline.

“Be lookout, would ya?” Bucky asked, and Steve couldn’t say no. It was his job to have his pal’s back just like Bucky had always had Steve’s.

“Fine,” he agreed, feeling weird about everything. Lorraine giggled and started to pull the curtain closed again but Bucky reached out and stopped her.

“I want Steve to watch.”

Steve was sure he’d heard him wrong. Bucky’s voice was really soft when he’d said it.

Sure. He'd heard him wrong, because the curtain was closing again--only it didn’t close all the way. It was open enough to where he could see Bucky still, and not much of Lorraine--but it was still too much.

Steve moved to stand in front of the opening so that his small body could block any view a passer-by might have. 

The thing was, he didn’t block the gap with his back, he blocked it with his back facing passers-by. Steve wasn’t sure why he did it.

He had heard Bucky wrong...right?

Steve’s cheeks started to burn red-hot when he realized he was staring. Worse still, Bucky was staring back. His eyes were locked on Steve’s as Lorraine knelt down on the floor of the photo booth and did that thing every guy dreams about. Steve wanted to be embarrassed for her, but the curtain kind of helped. He really couldn’t see much of Lorraine at all.

What he could see was Bucky. The look on Bucky’s face when she took him into her mouth, the way his eyes closed and his tongue flicked out to moisten his lips, hissing as his head tilted back.

Steve started to sweat. He didn’t know what was happening, it was like electric sparks were dancing across his skin, and his shoes were on too tight.

“Bucky…” Steve was too embarrassed to move. This was wrong.

His best friend’s eyes slipped open just enough to look at him again, Bucky’s eyelids heavy with lust. “Steve,” he sighed, and Steve nearly jumped out of his skin. He realized there was no way he was going to be able to walk away now, not without a stack of bibles to hold in front of his pants.

Steve swallowed and closed his eyes. _ Think of baseball _ , he told himself.  _ Dazzy Vance... _ was number 15, the Dodgers’ star pitcher with the fastest fastball in the world. His ERA was 125...

But closing his eyes wasn’t enough, because there was a wet sound coming from about the height of Steve’s navel, and Bucky was starting to emit little grunts of pleasure.    
  
“Oh, fuck yeah!” Steve’s eyes snapped open to see Bucky’s fingers twisted in Lorraine’s hair, his hips thrusting just a little where her mouth came down on him. 

Steve’s skin was on fire. He wasn’t sure, but he thought he might be crying. His eyes were burning, though his cheeks weren’t wet.

Then, just like that, it was over. Bucky sagged back against the photo booth and Lorraine reached down for a half-empty bucket of popcorn and spit something into it. Steve made a face.

Bucky was completely relaxed now, his eyes glazed over, wearing a smile that looked like the cat that ate the canary--although from what Steve had seen it’d been the other way around.

Steve turned away, hurriedly, not wanting Lorraine to see that he’d seen. He jumped about a foot in the air when fingers slid across his scalp to tease his hair. But it was just Bucky. Of course it was. “Asshole,” Steve hissed, pulling away.

“Now it’s Steve’s turn,” Bucky smiled, tugging his pants back together and pulling his suspenders up. To her credit--and Steve’s relief--Lorraine looked none-too-pleased at this.

“Gimme a minute, Barnes,” Lorraine hissed, pulling her own clothes back into place and checking herself in a compact she pulled out of her purse. “It’s not like a do this for a living, you know.”

“You promised,” Bucky reminded her, looking less dreamy and more serious.

“I know, but at least get me a drink first. Jesus.”

“Sure thing, doll,” Bucky grinned and slipped out of the booth to find one of the food vendors. Steve was still staring at Lorraine, not sure if what he was feeling was more horror or chagrin.

“I know what you’re thinking,” she said, continuing to look straight into her compact while she tried to fix her hair. “But I do it ‘cause I want to. And really, what girl doesn’t wanna do it with  _ him _ ?” She glanced after the way Bucky had gone.

“Yeah, that’s what I hear,” Steve said, his voice sounding hoarse even to his own ears. He thrust his hands into his pockets, trying to look cool.

She looked at him, then, and the pity in her eyes made Steve want to jump off the pier. “Yeah, I just bet you do.” But she smiled. “You poor kid. Stuck with an asshole like that for a best friend.” She tucked her compact back into her purse.

“He’s a jerk,” Steve agreed.

“He always bring you along on his dates?” she asked, trying to push herself up off the floor. Steve moved over to offer her a hand up, automatically. Of course, Lorraine never got asked on dates with Bucky, so she wouldn’t know. In a way, Steve felt like they were in the same boat.

“Pretty much,” he admitted.

“Shithead,” she proclaimed, and re-applied her lipstick without the aid of her compact, it seemed, almost instinctively.

“Yeah, he is.” Steve was just wracking his brain for a way to get out of this gracefully when said shithead returned with two cups. He handed one to Lorraine and offered the second to Steve. “No thanks,” Steve told him. “Anyway, Buck, I better be goin’. Mom’s gonna be back soon and--”

“Bullshit.” Bucky lifted his chin. He was ready for a fight. “Your mom’s workin’ late shift again. What, did you think I forgot?”

Steve sighed. He’d been hoping so. “Listen, Bucky, I really--”

“You’re seventeen, Stevie. It’s past time.” Bucky looked so serious. Steve wanted to laugh, because none of this felt real. It was like it was happening to somebody else. 

“Come on, Buck.” Steve stepped closer, lowering his voice. “You know this ain’t right. Lorraine--”

“Me and Lorraine already worked it out,” Bucky said, purposefully loud enough for her to hear. “Didn’t we, Lorraine?”

Lorraine came up to stand next to Bucky, her cup of lemonade almost gone. “What can I say, Rogers? Your best friend cares a lot about if you get your dick sucked or not.”

Steve was shocked to his toes at the vulgarity. She said it so unapologetically. Bucky just looked at him as if to say, _ Told you so _ .

“Asshole!” Steve hissed at Bucky. No matter what Lorraine said, this was still Bucky’s fault.

Bucky seemed unperturbed. “Look, I’ll tell you what. I’m gonna go back in this photo booth and return the favor for Lorraine. You do whatever the spirit moves you, okay, pal?” Lorraine’s eyes were alight now, and she stared at Bucky with a hunger Steve could only describe as indecent.

“What if the spirit moves me to go the fuck home?” Steve scowled.

Lorraine chuckled. “Come on, Stevie, don’t be like that.”

“Yeah, Stevie,” Bucky echoed, towing Lorraine along behind him as he climbed back into the photo booth.

Steve was still scowling, but then Lorraine was holding his hand the way Bucky was holding hers--with the fingers twined together--and he was getting pulled along for the ride. “Hey...wait...I don’t--” The nerves kicked in, knocking the fight right out of him.

“You won’t have to do anything you don’t want to,” Lorraine whispered into his ear. Then she smiled, and Steve believed her. And he wanted to--at least part of him did--but this was so awkward, goddamnit. He blamed Bucky.

Bucky, who was lowering Lorraine down on the photo booth’s stool like a perfect gentleman, waiting for her to get settled before kneeling between her legs and pushing her skirt up. Steve looked hurriedly away, closing the curtain behind them automatically. “Guys,” he grunted. “There’s not enough room in here.” Steve tried his best to jam himself into the far corner. He was small, he thought, he might fit.

A squeak from Lorraine made him look. He shouldn’t have looked. “Come here, Steve,” Lorraine beckoned, her cheeks suddenly very pink. Steve wasn’t sure how to do that in this small a space without crawling over his best (asshole) friend, but he managed to sidle around the wall of the booth until he was standing beside her and mostly away from Bucky and that...thing he was doing so enthusiastically.

All of a sudden, Lorraine gasped, her head jerking back to slam against the back of the photo booth. Steve grabbed her by instinct--he didn’t want her to hurt herself. “Buck, what the--” he was starting to demand when Lorraine’s enthusiastic wail cut him off.

“Ohhh, Bucky!” She was trembling, so Steve held her tighter. This didn’t seem like a nice thing to do to a dame. She was in a  _ state. _

“Steve,” Lorraine gasped, her eyes looking up at him, pleading. “Kiss me.”

Steve didn’t have the chance to even think about it, because she jerked him down onto her lips, and then there it was. His first grown-up kiss with a girl and why was his best friend part of it?

Lorraine’s tongue inside his mouth was making Steve weak in the knees. He held onto her, fascinated by the rhythm of her body and the effect Bucky was having on it. She gasped, and Steve tried nibbling her lips a little. It was definitely having an effect on him. He brushed tentative fingers over the front of her blouse and was rewarded with a moan.

_ Oh god _ , he thought, all of a sudden.  _ I’m gonna cream my pants. We’re all the way out at Coney Island. I’m not riding the train all the way home to the Heights with wet shorts.  _ Even if Bucky ever let him live it down, the other assholes on the train would have a field day. 

So Steve took a deep breath and pulled away. Lorraine cried out, so he held onto her, but he didn’t kiss her again, or touch her any more than it took to steady her. She got real loud, then, her whole body convulsing, and Steve clamped a hand over her mouth--because all they needed was one of the boardwalk cops coming in right now. He felt a little bad for it, but Lorraine’s fit seemed to pass quickly. He kept a hold of her, just in case, and saw Bucky moving back out of the corner of his eye. Steve turned and glared at him. 

Bucky, his face glistening wet from the nose down, grinned up at him, unrepentant, and had the audacity to throw Steve a wink. 

“Asshole!” Steve hissed. He helped Lorraine sit back up, brushing her skirt back down in an almost protective way. “You okay, kid?” Steve asked, feeling oddly responsible for what had just been done to her.

“Hell yes!” Lorraine sighed. “Bucky, if you could bottle that--”

“I know, I’d be a millionaire.” He chuckled, wiping his face off on the handkerchief he always carried in his suit pocket. Lorraine didn’t move. She seemed okay now, though, so Steve let go of her.

“All right,” he said, awkwardly, “Now if that’s over--” Steve started to walk out, but Bucky blocked his way, his eyes giving Steve the once-over.

“Hold it.” Steve didn’t like the way Bucky was looking at him. Then he looked at Lorraine. “You didn’t finish him.”

Steve groaned. “Oh, for fuck’s sake, Buck!” He elbowed his way past his so-called best pal and stormed off in the general direction of the train station.

“Steve, get back here!” he heard Bucky shout after him, but Steve was not about to stop. If Bucky tried to stop him now, he was gonna get a black eye. At least Lorraine wasn’t joining in.

“Sorry, Stevie!” he heard her call out, just before Steve was out of earshot.

Well that was just great. The most humiliating night of his life, courtesy of his so-called best friend. “Asshole!” Steve cursed to himself under his breath, garnering a few sideward glances from other passengers on the 4 train.

 


	2. The Couch Cushions

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Steve and Bucky talk. Tempers flare and quiet.  
> Bucky just wants to help Steve "when the time comes." As a peace offering, he tries to teach Steve how to properly kiss a girl.  
> Steve realizes something.  
> A confession is made.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The m/m part is here, so please don't stop reading. 
> 
> I honestly have no idea where tinydom!Steve came from. He appeared so organically, I'm just going to assume it's a thing and walk away whistling.  
> You saw nothing.

By the time he got back to their apartment, Steve was just tired. He flopped face-down on the couch, trying to think of what he was gonna tell his mom when she got home. Sarah Rogers always knew when something was up with her son. He couldn’t hide it from her, but maybe he could couch it in a less-shocking lie. Instead of, 'Well, my asshole best friend shut me in a photo booth with a fast dame and made me watch,' he might say, 'Me and Buck had a fight,' which was kind of true, or, 'My best friend is a grade A asshole,' which was also true. But she’d probably want to know more.

“Goddamnit!” Steve groaned, rolling over to stare at the ceiling.

“You kiss your mother with that mouth?” A voice asked out of the darkness. Steve must have jumped about two feet.

“Bucky? What the fuck!?”

Bucky shrugged. “I figured Lorraine deserved a cab home after what you put her through,” he teased. “I tagged along this far. Figured you wouldn’t have made it home yet.”

Steve leapt off the couch with the rage of a 600 pound tiger. “James Buchanan Barnes, you are a grade A asshole! What **I** put her through?!”

“Yeah,” Bucky answered easily. “All you had to do was stand there.”

“All I--?!” Steve started to repeat the stupidity, but ended up choking on his own rage. “Bucky, people aren’t just toys you can throw around like that! We have feelings! Lorraine is a person, she’s not a...a sex toy!”

Bucky laughed hard at that.

Steve threw a couch cushion at his head.

“Okay, okay,” Bucky conceded once there were no more cushions on the couch. “I’ll call her up tomorrow and say sorry. Better?”

But it wasn’t, and Steve couldn’t say just why. Surely it was about Lorraine, but Lorraine hadn’t seemed to mind so much. If anything, Bucky had already kind of made it up to her…

“Why’d you do it, Buck?” Steve found himself asking. “What in the hell made you think I’d WANT that?”

Bucky, infuriatingly, just shrugged. “Well you’re a guy, aren’t you?”

“Yeah, I’m a guy!” Steve said. “But I got feelings, Buck. I’m not like you. I can’t just fu--” He stopped, not because he wasn’t still mad as hell, but because of the look on Bucky’s face.

“Go on,” Bucky drew out the words. He had that _fight me_ look in his eyes.

Steve clenched his fists and started again, replacing a few choice words. “I’m not like you. I can’t just DATE a girl I don’t care about.”

Bucky was still staring at him. “You think I don’t care about Lorraine?”

Steve laughed. “I KNOW you don’t care about Lorraine! The way you treated her tonight? You kiddin’ me, Buck?”

Now Bucky looked defensive. “Look, I hashed all of this out with her in advance. She was fine with it--”

“Shut up!” Steve shouted. “Are you even listening to yourself? She’s not a goddamned prostitute!”

Bucky stared at him, nostrils flared, his jaw clenching and unclenching. “Fuck you, Steve.”

“Fuck YOU!” Steve was ready for this. It was on now.

But the fight seemed to have gone out of Bucky. He was pushing himself up out of the chair and heading for the front door.

“Oh no you don’t!” Steve wanted to fight, and he was going to start a fight even if Bucky didn’t want to have one anymore.

“Steve,” Bucky sighed, looking tired. “Get out of my way.”

“Why don’t you fuckin’ MAKE me!” Steve growled.

And then Bucky did something completely unexpected: he laid his hand on Steve’s cheek, and bent down very lightly for the merest brush of lips on lips.

“Get out of my way, Steve,” he said again, this time a whisper, because their faces were still so close.

For his part, Steve wasn’t sure what the fuck was going on now. His hard-on was back, but he still wanted to fight Bucky. At the same time, his legs didn’t seem to be working anymore. “Bucky, what the fuck?”

At least Bucky wasn’t leaving. He just stood back on his heels, his gaze dropping to the floor. “I care about you more than Lorraine.”

“No shit, Sherlock.” But the fight was going out of Steve, being replaced by...something else. Confusion? And something like...longing.

“Just…” Bucky sighed. “Don’t be fuckin’ mad at me, okay? I was tryin’ to do somethin’ nice.”

Steve just shook his head. That his best friend would think that _that_ was something Steve wanted. “ _That_ wasn’t **nice** ,” Steve told him, his voice cracking with the vehemence of it, though he hadn’t raised his voice.

“I’m sorry.”

Now Steve felt bad. Bucky looked so deflated, like he really _had_ meant to do something nice. “You’re a fucking asshole,” Steve said gently, reaching out to rest a comforting hand on his pal’s shoulder.

Bucky turned his face away, not accepting the apology. “I gotta go. The girls’ll be wonderin’ where I am about now.”

Somehow, Steve knew he couldn’t let Bucky leave. Not yet. “Naw. C’mon, Mom’s not home for a few hours yet. I’ll put on a pot of coffee--and you can call up Katie,” Steve added before Bucky could protest about his sisters again. “Let her know where you are--as if she didn’t already know.”

“Yeah, I guess,” Bucky replied, noncommittally, his hands still thrust into his coat pockets.

“You know where the phone is,” Steve told him, heading over to the stove to put the kettle on. Maybe it hadn’t been just an excuse, because Steve could hear the dial whirring in the room behind him as Bucky placed the call.

“Kate?” he was saying. “Sorry to call so late, honey, how is--

…

Oh, she did?

…

She is?

…

Aw, shit.”

With anyone else, Steve wouldn’t be eavesdropping, but now he was curious. There was a long silence as Bucky listened to whatever his sister was telling him on the other end of the line. “So whaddayou think, is it better if I come home, or--?

...

Yeah.

...

Yeah, okay. Well, I’m at Stevie’s if you need me.

…

Yep. Love you, too, ugly girl.”

The sound of the receiver dropping into the cradle shouldn’t have been so loud. Steve turned to see Bucky plop down on the couch.

“What’d she catch you doing this time?”

Bucky snorted. “Lorraine.”

“Get outta here!” Steve wandered back into the living room proper. “Your mom was _there?_ ” He was suddenly ten times as horrified by what they’d done.

“Don’t shit your pants, pal, it was that old bag from church. She can’t seem to mind her own damn business.”

“SHE was there?!” Somehow this was not much less horrifying for Steve.

Bucky laughed. “No, dumbass! Her fatass kid. I guess he sells cotton candy on the weekend or some shit.”

“Damn.” Steve let this sink in, trying to evaluate how much deep shit they were in.

“He didn’t see nothin’,” Bucky assured him, “He just saw I was with Lorraine. Most people can draw their own conclusions after that.”

Steve nodded. _Apparently._

“Did…” Steve almost hated himself for asking, “Did he see me, too?” He bit his lip. A couch cushion hit him square in the nose.

“No, you stupid prick. I’m the only one in trouble.”

“Oh. Well then.” Steve headed back to check on the water.

“Thanks for nothing, jerkface!” Bucky called after him.

“You’re welcome!” Steve called back, sweetly. As far as he was concerned, Bucky had gotten himself into this one.

He must have fallen asleep standing up, because Steve missed the moment in between going to the kitchen to check the water and Bucky standing there, leaning against the wall, staring at him. “Hey,” he said quietly.

“Hey what?” Steve was not gonna bail him out of this one.

Bucky leaned forward. His arms were crossed over his chest, and he looked worried. “You’re not really mad, are you?”

Steve had to stop and look Bucky square in the eye. “Are you seriously asking me that?”

Bucky raised his hands in surrender. “Okay, you are mad. Sorry!”

“You’re a piece of work, buddy.” Steve shook his head, pouring the hot water into the filter and waiting for it to seep through the coffee grounds.

“I seriously--I didn’t know!” Bucky insisted.

Steve literally could not believe how stupid his best friend could be. “You could have asked.” He watched his friend process this. It didn’t seem to be something Bucky had even thought of.

“Naw.” He brushed it off with a shake of his head. “Naw, it had to be a surprise. No way.”

Steve shook his head. “Because you know if you’da asked, I’da said no.”

“No…” Bucky thought about this. “Well, yeah.”

“See?” Steve turned around, accusingly.

“Okay, but. Come on, Steve. Sometimes...when it’s time, it’s just time.”

Steve just stared at him, one corner of his mouth quirked up. “I decide when it’s time,” he ground out. “Not you.”

“Oh, come on, Stevie, if it was up to you you might never--” And he stopped, because Bucky could tell from the look on Steve’s face that it had come out wrong. “Not that you wouldn’t be able to if you wanted--” he hastily amended, but it was too late.

“You know what?” Steve said, taking his cup of coffee and moving back toward the couch. “Make your own damned coffee, asshole.”

While Steve sat on the couch, fuming, Bucky dutifully placed the kettle back on the stove, made sure the gas was off, and set the coffee filter in its cone on the edge of the sink for tomorrow morning’s coffee. Then he shuffled into the living room to sit down on the floor at Steve’s feet.

“You hate me now.” It wasn’t a question.

“No I don’t hate you,” Steve said at last, though he knew Bucky was just baiting him. Bucky knew Steve couldn’t stay mad at him for long. It was the eyes. Speaking of which--

“Quit lookin’ at me--get up here!” Steve demanded. It was like trying to talk to a Bassett hound after it ate your slippers. Bucky quickly complied, the pitiful expression gone. “But you’re still an asshole,” Steve added for good measure.

“Yep.” Bucky nodded agreement. “An asshole who cares about you and wants the best for his best pal.”

“Then...can you just let me find my own time?” Steve asked, and there was a pleading note in his voice. Bucky was forever big-brothering him and making decisions for Steve. It was well-intentioned, but it drove him nuts. Bucky was so used to being a big brother that Steve suspected he couldn’t turn it off.

Bucky shrugged. “I dunno. I guess,” he conceded at last. Steve kicked him in the thigh with a socked foot. Bucky caught it and pulled it into his lap, absently rubbing the non-existent arch. He knew how Steve’s feet could hurt him.  “But...can you at least let me help...sometimes?” he added, at the black look that Steve shot him. “Like, if you have questions about how to--how it works...come ask me?”

Steve tried not to smile. Bucky trying to be indirect was funny as hell. “How what works?” He was going to draw this out if he could. Bucky looked uncomfortable. And that was rare.

“You know…” Bucky made a vague hand gesture that could have been an hourglass or breasts or something Steve couldn’t even guess at.

“Pretend I don’t.” It was so hard to keep a straight face.

Bucky sighed and looked at Steve. And realized Steve was fucking with him. He decided to give it right back. Bucky moved closer on the couch and lowered his voice. “You know...like...how to kiss a girl?”

Bucky’s voice had gone all sultry silk, and Steve wasn’t amused anymore. “I know how to do that,” Steve said, defensive.

Bucky snorted. “No you fuckin’ **don’t** , pal.” Steve glared, but Bucky wasn’t having it. “I was watching what you call kissing, and I wouldn’t--”

Steve was shocked. “You were busy!” He felt violated somehow.

“Not with my eyes!” Bucky pointed out. Steve made a face, and Bucky laughed. “You ask me,” Bucky shrugged, “you could use a few pointers.”

“Okay, fine!” Steve was embarrassed, and he was not backing down for anything. “Like what?”

“Like don’t choke on your own tongue, for starters,” Bucky began. “Don’t bend over her face like some bird of prey stooping to catch a fish out of Lake Eerie….”

Steve swatted him, but Bucky just laughed. “Asshole.”

“See, when a woman wants you to kiss her...here, I’ll show you.” And he was moving right up against Steve on the couch. “You be Lorraine, and I’ll be you--but I’m not you, I’m me, and I know how to kiss a girl.”

Steve’s cough of disbelief was somewhat muffled in the moment of awkwardness suddenly caused by Bucky volunteering him as the girl in need of kissing.

“Okay, so like. When a girl wants you to kiss her, she’s usually looking up at you, kind of--” And Bucky made an expression that was somewhere between a fish begging for food and Greta Garbo. How he managed it, Steve couldn’t have said.

“So she’s basically offering you her lips anyway, so all’s you gotta do is--” Bucky’s hand pressed into the small of Steve’s back, gently pushing him toward Bucky. “You put your hand in the small of her back and like. Just let her know it’s okay with you.”

Steve didn’t like the way Bucky was looking into his eyes. There was a moment of blind panic when-- “Then all you gotta do is lean down and--”

Bucky laughed when Steve turned his face away. “What the hell, pal? I wasn’t actually gonna kiss you. Okay, now it’s your turn.”

Steve’s look was no less panicked.

“I’ll be Lorraine and you be you. Only you be me being you, because that kiss you planted on her earlier tonight was for chumps.”

Steve was just opening his mouth to argue that Lorraine had kissed HIM, not the other way around, when he thought better of it. Somehow he didn’t think it would make him look any better in Bucky’s eyes.  “Fine.” Steve drew himself up to the challenge. “You’re Lorraine, and I’m me. Not some jerk asshole who sets his friend up without asking first.”

Bucky rolled his eyes but proceeded to make the Greta Garbo fishface again. Steve lost focus for a second.

“Okay, so first I put--” He paused. The angles were all wrong. He sat up on his knees, which gave him the height he’d been lacking. “I put my hand on her back like this...” Slowly, Steve talked his way through it.

Bucky thought he was being hilarious making that damn face, but Steve kind of wished Bucky wasn’t looking at him like that. He averted his gaze from Bucky’s as he slid his hand down his friend’s back, trying to find the right place.

“Close,” Bucky said, reaching around to tug Steve’s hand down a little lower, which caused Steve to tip forward toward him a little, off-balance. “Right there.”

Steve found himself awkwardly eye to eye with his best friend. “Okay.”

“And then…” Bucky prompted.

“Then I just lean down and--”

Bucky did not turn his face away, as Steve had. So what Steve got instead of a theoretical practice session on kissing was an actual tutorial.

A jolt of pure electricity shot through Steve when he realized Bucky was still kissing him--or was it the other way around? He felt like his hair was standing on end. And whose hand was on whose back, anyway? He felt Bucky’s warm palm cupping the back of his neck, and Steve moved his lips against Bucky’s, forcing them open so he could run his tongue along--

“Okay, that’s wrong,” Bucky pulled away, sending Steve’s train of thought crashing down into a ravine. “See, when she gives you her lips--”

Steve clamped a hand over Bucky’s mouth. “Bucky? Pal? Buck? Buddy?” Steve hissed in frustration. Why did he have to be friends with such a fucking know-it-all anyway?

“Mmrph?” Bucky asked through Steve’s sweaty palm.

“Shut. Up.”

Steve took his hand away and went back to what he’d been doing, planting one full on Bucky’s mouth. His other hand still on his friend’s back, Steve felt Bucky relax against him, and then he was most definitely kissing Steve back. Bucky’s hands gripped Steve’s shoulders as though he was afraid Steve might stop. Steve did not stop. He rubbed his lips against Bucky’s before teasing them open with his tongue. He was gripping the front of Bucky’s shirt in tight fists, pulling him closer.

“Steve…” Bucky breathed.

“I said ‘shut up’,” Steve reminded, hardly missing a beat. “Just…” The five o’clock shadow on Bucky’s jaw tickled his lips, but what Steve liked best was feeling his friend’s pulse against them. “Just...let me…” Steve meant to continue his original request before all this had started--for Bucky to let him ‘find his time’--but the words hung in the air, and seemed to mean more now.

Bucky didn’t reply in words. His fingers wound their way into Steve’s hair, wrapping slender strands around his knuckles as he acquiesced and let Steve do whatever Steve was going to do.

Even Steve wasn’t sure what that was, he just knew he wanted to keep going. He leaned back just enough to trace a finger across the hickey Lorraine had left on Bucky just a few hours ago, frowning. He leaned over to bite the other side of Bucky’s neck, hard. His friend gasped, but not in pain.

“Buck,” Steve growled, analyzing what had happened earlier tonight with new eyes.

“Steve…” Bucky’s voice sounded almost groggy.

Steve slid a hand down Bucky’s chest to rest on his friend’s belt buckle for a second before it kept on going, making Bucky squirm. “Why’d you want me to watch?”

“S-so you could--” He wasn’t sure if Bucky was trying to wriggle away from his hand or against it, but Steve wasn’t letting him get away.

“Could?” Steve prompted, delivering another bruising bite to Bucky’s stubbled throat.

“Could learn...” Bucky ground out, his cock all but in Steve’s hand, the fabric of his slacks between Steve’s palm and Bucky’s erection just a formality at this point.

“Learn what?” Steve whispered, leaning his head against Bucky’s shoulder while he worked Bucky’s fly open.

“How to--” He thrust his hips against Steve’s grip. “Oh, shit!” he gasped. “This is wrong!”

Steve caught his eyes just as Bucky was about to pull away and willed him to stay where he was. “Why?” Steve demanded.

“‘Cause we’re both guys?” The excuse was offered for Steve’s approval, showing even Bucky didn’t buy it 100%.

Steve rejected it. “This isn’t the first time your dick has been in my hand, pal.”

“What?” Bucky squirmed. “We were just kids!” And then he utterly defeated any argument he was going to make by moaning loudly as Steve’s fist closed over his hot need.

“Steve,” he pleaded. “Seriously…”

“Seriously what?” Steve was giving him no leeway, stroking slowly with the exact pressure he knew Bucky liked.

Bucky’s eyes rolled back in his head. “Fuck _me_.”

And Steve knew that wasn’t what Bucky had meant, but it suddenly all clicked into place. Lorraine was fine and all. Groping her chest had been nice. But not as nice as this.

“You know…” Steve began, thoughtful. “Like you said, she didn’t finish me off…”

Bucky’s eyes opened. His expression was a little dazed, but the look of horror was crystal clear.

Steve laughed. “No, I’m not gonna make you suck my dick.” Bucky looked relieved, and Steve felt a rush of power, because in that moment, he realized he could have.

He sat back on the couch, letting his friend go. “Fuck you anyway,” Steve told him, in a much better mood now. “I’m gonna take a shower.”

He’d fully intended on it, too, until Bucky caught him by the wrist and pulled him back.

“What?” Steve asked, glancing down at where his friend was cradling his blood engorged erection, plaintively looking at him. Steve shook his head. “You want something, you gotta say it.”

But he couldn’t say it, Steve knew. Instead, Bucky pulled him back down so that they were both lying on the couch, Steve stretched out on top of Bucky.

It wasn’t a tutorial then, Bucky just kissed him, every bit as much as he’d kissed Lorraine--maybe more. Steve let Bucky lead the way, enjoying the hell out of every minute. When Bucky started grinding against him, he hopped up and ran into the bathroom for some lotion. When he returned, Steve dropped his pants and made sure they were both nice and slick.

“You’re a little punk,” Bucky hissed against his lips, and Steve chuckled, rubbing the head of his cock as Bucky thrust against his fingers.

“You never answered the question,” Steve said, gently stroking Bucky’s sac as he shifted it out of the way to push himself between the taller boy’s thighs. Bucky flexed and tightened them automatically. It had been years, but this was not their first time by any stretch.

“Question?” His eyes were glazing over again.

Steve bit his neck in the same place, making the mark darker. “Why’d you want me to watch?”

“So you could see--” He shivered as Steve started to move between his thighs, stroking Bucky in rhythm with his thrusts.

“See what?” Steve asked, rubbing his cheek against Bucky’s. He liked the feel of his friend’s dark stubble.

“How much I wished it was you.” The words came tumbling out in a desperate whisper, almost unintelligible. Bucky’s face was turned away in shame.

Steve was stunned. His shameless best friend. Ashamed.

Steve raised a hand to his cheek, turning Bucky’s face so that he had to look him in the eye. “You dumb bastard,” Steve whispered. “Don’t you know all you had to do was ask?”

He kissed Bucky silent then, and though more sounds followed, they weren’t exactly words.

 

*

When Sarah Rogers came home from work that morning, she found her seventeen-year-old son asleep on top of the couch cushions on the floor, curled together in a heap of boy with his best friend as they had done so many times before when they were children. She smiled and tucked the sheets around them both, pressing her lips to her son’s forehead--an old habit to check for the first signs of a fever with affection instead of a thermometer--before slouching off to bed herself.  

Steve stirred in his sleep, mumbling groggily, “Mom?”

“Shuddup,” Bucky grumbled back, tugging Steve close. “‘m tryin ta sleep, ya damn punk.”

“Jerk,” Steve sighed, slipping back into the arms of blissful sleep.  

  
  



End file.
